


Into the Morning

by SpringZephyr



Category: Inazuma Eleven, Inazuma Eleven: Ares no Tenbin
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28356495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpringZephyr/pseuds/SpringZephyr
Summary: Kazemaru, Fudou, and Shimerigawa eat snacks, play games, and continue forging an unlikely friendship in this sequel fic to UnderdogHero's "(not so) silent night". This has no relation to the Secret Santa exchange -- I just wanted to write this.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Into the Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote a sequel to https://archiveofourown.org/works/28354194 where I somehow manage to get even farther away from what Hero's Secret Santa wanted. But I hope they enjoy that fic regardless, because I certainly did.
> 
> Flattery is also the best inspiration to me.
> 
> Hero: “I think part of the reason I tried to write Shimerigawa this way was because of the fic you wrote, where he tried to get training from Norika. I wanted it to be somewhere in between "he learned his lesson" and "he's still the little shit we knew"”
> 
> This is the fic mentioned, by the way: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26658385

“We have our snacks, our light source, our third wheel” – strangely, Shimerigawa did not react to that, even as Kazemaru sat down on the cushion across from him – “and I just turned in my report to the dorm master. Now all we need is a way to pass the time.”

“Are you suggesting we play a game?” Fudou asked, skeptical.

When Kazemaru had told him to save some marshmallows for him, he hadn't expected the other boy to turn it into an event. On the other hand, this whole night had been one big event – the power going out. The thing with Genda and Sakuma. Somehow finding himself stuck babysitting Shimerigawa, the resident nuisance and crybaby, for the rest of the night.

“Yep.” The smile in Kazemaru's voice was even brighter than the one on his face. “I'll start. Fudou, I dare you to knock on the door to Genda's room.”

“We are _not_ playing Truth or Dare!” Fudou snapped back. For a variety of reasons. “Besides, I thought we agreed, didn't see...” He cut himself off, suddenly aware of the curious glance Shimerigawa was giving him. “I mean. Truth or Dare isn't fun if there are only three people anyway.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Kazemaru asked.

“That we go to bed?”

“Boring. Shimerigawa?”

“You're asking me?” For a moment, Shimerigawa's eyes were so wide that the bags beneath them almost disappeared. “Oh, um... maybe one of those board things where you move a puck around and try to contact spirits?”

He mimicked some kind of writing motion in the air, then proceeded to flail his arms in a way that made even less sense to Fudou. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Kazemaru figured it out. “You mean a Ouija board?”

“A _what?_ ”

“Yes, that!” Shimerigawa flashed the biggest smile Fudou had seen from him all night. “I've always wanted to try that.”

“I always knew you were hellspawn,” Fudou grumbled.

“Let's play Uno,” Kazemaru said.

X

They played six rounds of Uno before moving onto Goldfish, then Old Maid. And honestly, they probably never would've moved on from Uno if Kazemaru and Fudou hadn't outnumbered Shimerigawa on the matter – this was a game that the two of them had played thousands of times, but Shimerigawa hadn't even known the rules. He seriously could've played Uno all night, if they'd been willing.

And he was trash at it.

Extremely easy to read. When he drew a good card, he smiled like a shark sniffing blood in the water. If Fudou or Kazemaru said “maybe I should play a yellow card next”, they could expect Shimerigawa to react in a way that would help them out. And he had the obnoxious habit of yelling things like “it's time to show you my true power!” and “you will regret the day you dared defy me!” at the start of at least half of his turns.

“Let's go back to Uno,” Kazemaru suggested after his third consecutive win at Old Maid. He was either extremely lucky or uncannily good at that game, and Fudou wasn't sure he wanted to know which.

As expected, Shimerigawa's whole demeanor brightened at the mention of Uno. “Oh, but we're out of marshmallows...” he said.

“Whose fault is that?” Fudou replied.

That guy had gone through half a bag of Jimon's marshmallows _and_ the extra spicy chili cheese chips Fudou had fetched from his room all by himself. He didn't have the decency to look guilty at Fudou's accusations either.

“My dad doesn't let me have snacks,” he shrugged.

Kazemaru shuffled the deck of cards, and while they bantered occasionally, this round of Uno was a lot quieter than the last. So was the next round.

Fudou was just starting to feel at ease around this new, quieter Shimerigawa, when the first year ruined it by asking, “So your mom really can't afford Christmas presents?”

He looked eerily somber for a kid who'd looked more hamster than human after stuffing his cheeks full of marshmallows not that long ago. Their only source of light, still that lantern and a couple of candles the dorm master had given Kazemaru during the power outage, only managed to make it worse by casting Shimerigawa in an unflattering light. It highlighted every gaunt line of his face, made the pockets under his eyes look that much deeper.

He'd looked so much more like, well, one of them when he'd been laughing and indulging in sugar – like a regular middle schooler. But Fudou would've preferred even the regular, obnoxious and arrogant, Shimerigawa to this Shimerigawa, who was looking at him like he'd just been told the world was ending.

Especially since the regular Shimerigawa didn't pry into his personal life.

Fudou glanced at Kazemaru, who furrowed his eyebrows and apparently wasn't going to answer this question for him. Darn. He was on his own then.

“Yeah.”

“Even though you're her kid?”

Hoping that Shimerigawa would take a hint from his first unenthusiastic response

“That's how it goes, sometimes.”

“But that's so – ”

“That's just how it is,” Fudou snapped back, the muscles of his jaw tightening with very word. “We don't need to talk about it.”

“In fact,” Kazemaru cut in defensively, “we should probably be going to bed.”

Fudou rolled his eyes. “You think? That's what I tried telling you _hours_ ago.”

Shimerigawa didn't put down his hand of cards right away. At first, Fudou assumed it was just because he didn't want to stop playing. “You know, I could – Father says it's beneath people of our status. That I shouldn't feel sorry for people like you...”

The temptation to tell Shimerigawa “spit it out before I hit it out” was very strong in that moment. Fudou knew Kazemaru wouldn't approve, so he hoped the glare he shot Shimerigawa got his message across instead.

“But I was thinking, _maybe_ – father wouldn't mind if I gave you some of my presents? Just... just one or two little presents, maybe? I-if he accidentally gives me something I didn't want – ”

Fudou can't offer him much in the way of a response other than a scowl, but he ends up agreeing to let Shimerigawa spend the night in his room regardless, even though the power will  _probably_ turn back on soon. Kazemaru designated his own spot on the floor also, presumably to prevent a cold-blooded murder the next time Shimerigawa did something to annoy Fudou, like, who knew, maybe snoring too loud? Because Fudou could definitely imagine Shimerigawa was the type of person to talk in his sleep or snore or something.

“He's trying, you know,” Kazemaru muttered, at some point after the lights were turned out and Shimerigawa was definitely asleep.

He didn't snore, like Fudou suspected, but he had managed to carry a conversation all the way up to the point his eyelids had drooped shut for good. A mostly one-sided conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. Fudou would have never guessed that Shimerigawa had such a hidden passion for soap carving and online cat vidoes.

“You don't like him either,” Fudou responded.

Kazemaru didn't say anything at first. “The same could be said about you,” he replied finally, making Fudou scoff. “There was a point in time I didn't think we'd ever get along.”

“We have nothing in common.”

He rolled over, so his back was facing Kazemaru, intent on ending the conversation there, whether Kazemaru had anything to say or not. Yet now that the thought had been planted in his mind, Fudou couldn't stop nurturing it – 

Maybe, if things had gone a little bit differently, he and Shimerigawa would've been more alike than he was willing to admit. Lashing out against other people because he didn't know better, or didn't care enough to act like he knew better. Antagonizing people for the sake of it, or just to hide his insecurities.

Then he thought about it a little more, and decided  _no,_ he'd be way better at it than Shimerigawa, who wasn't even smart enough to be doing this on purpose, before finally dozing off.

X

The next morning, despite the dorms still only having about six people in them thanks to Christmas break, the cafeteria managed to feel overly crowded as soon as Sakuma and Genda entered. Kazemaru met Sakuma's eyes, while Fudou met Genda's, and the conversation they'd been having fell faster than Fudou's chopsticks hit the cafeteria table.

The newcomers raised an eyebrow at the sight of Shimerigawa at their table, but the awkward memories of last night took precedence, and they hurriedly looked away. Sakuma looked embarrassed, Genda looked annoyed. Fudou's and Kazemaru's expressions were a mixture of both.

And Shimerigawa, who didn't know what to make of any of their expressions, just blinked in confusion. 

“Did something happen?” he asked.

Fudou, who was still immature enough to find completely innocent hand holding salacious and lewd, had no intention of answering that question honestly. He would've rather admitted that Kazemaru was right, and Shimerigawa was actually okay sometimes, once he got past his many, many, many annoying traits. Most of which he'd learned from his father, based on what Fudou had learned about Shimerigawa so far.

“ _We didn't see anything,_ ” he and Kazemaru replied in unison. 

**Author's Note:**

> Good to know that my attempt to pilot a Shimerigawa redemption movement has resulted in at least one (one!) whole other person liking Shimerigawa.


End file.
